Waymo Starts Offering Autonomous Rides In San Francisco (theverge.com) 26
Waymo is going to start shuttling a wider group of passengers around in its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, California -- though they'll have to sign nondisclosure agreements, and there still will be a human safety driver behind the wheel. The Verge reports: It's the second city where the company has expanded its nascent autonomous vehicle offering, as the Google sibling has been performing fully driverless rides without a safety driver in parts of Phoenix, Arizona for more than a year now. Waymo is one of a handful of companies trying to get a commercial service off the ground built around autonomous vehicles, like Argo AI (which is backed by Ford and Volkswagen) and Cruise (which is backed by General Motors).
Waymo has been testing self-driving cars in San Francisco for a decade, dating back to when it was still just a quirky-looking project inside Google. And it has let some Waymo employees ride in the early version of the commercial AV program in San Francisco. But now people can apply through the Waymo One smartphone app to take part in what it's calling the "Trusted Tester" program, which is basically a rebranding of the "Early Rider" program it ran in Phoenix. (Waymo says the Early Rider program in Phoenix will also take on the new name.) People who are accepted into the program will be able to take rides in Waymo's autonomous Jaguar I-Pace SUVs for free but will have to offer feedback in exchange, and they won't be able to publicly share what the experience is like. There will be vehicles that are wheelchair-accessible, too. This is how the company started out the service in Phoenix, though now anyone can hop into one of its vehicles there and even film and share the experience -- warts and all. "From using the Waymo One app, to pickup and drop-offs, to the ride itself, we receive valuable feedback from our riders that allows us to refine our product offering as we advance our service" in San Francisco, the company wrote in a blog post. "We kicked off this program last week with a select few and are now expanding the program to all interested San Franciscans. We'll begin with an initial group and welcome more riders in the weeks to come."
Waymo has been testing self-driving cars in San Francisco for a decade, dating back to when it was still just a quirky-looking project inside Google. And it has let some Waymo employees ride in the early version of the commercial AV program in San Francisco. But now people can apply through the Waymo One smartphone app to take part in what it's calling the "Trusted Tester" program, which is basically a rebranding of the "Early Rider" program it ran in Phoenix. (Waymo says the Early Rider program in Phoenix will also take on the new name.) People who are accepted into the program will be able to take rides in Waymo's autonomous Jaguar I-Pace SUVs for free but will have to offer feedback in exchange, and they won't be able to publicly share what the experience is like. There will be vehicles that are wheelchair-accessible, too. This is how the company started out the service in Phoenix, though now anyone can hop into one of its vehicles there and even film and share the experience -- warts and all. "From using the Waymo One app, to pickup and drop-offs, to the ride itself, we receive valuable feedback from our riders that allows us to refine our product offering as we advance our service" in San Francisco, the company wrote in a blog post. "We kicked off this program last week with a select few and are now expanding the program to all interested San Franciscans. We'll begin with an initial group and welcome more riders in the weeks to come."
Remaining obstacles (Score:2)
The remaining obstacles for Google's approach to self-driving cars are:
1) Needs an extremely detailed map of where it is going, otherwise it is helpless.
2) Doesn't handle inclement weather very well.
After that there's still the expense of the hardware, but that's a relatively smaller problem.
Re: (Score:2)
1) Needs an extremely detailed map of where it is going
Google has details on every public road that is paved and many that are not.
2) Doesn't handle inclement weather very well.
I live in the Bay Area. We don't have inclement weather here.
After that there's still the expense of the hardware
Compared to employing a human, Lidar is cheap, about $7500 per car.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Google has details on every public road that is paved and many that are not.
They need to know how many centimeters tall the curb is. There is a lot of detail.
If you are talking about Google maps, that is unacceptable data for a self-driving car. For example, Google maps told me to drive over the edge of an overpass. That's somewhat rare and I didn't do it, but for a self-driving car it can't happen. With a self-driving car, mistakes like this can lead to death [npr.org], not just confused people.
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Also doesn't handle complex traffic situations well either. SF is an improvement but I'd really like to see it working in Rome or Paris.
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I'd bet there are some streets in SF that it avoids.
NDA for a cab ride?! (Score:3)
Dah-Faq?What's wrong with people that they'd sign an NDA just to be driven by a Johnie Cab?
we hope you enjoy the ride! (Score:2)
we hope you enjoy the ride!
Scene in a James Bond film (Score:2)
The VIP passengers are in the autonomous-driving van with the safety driver monitoring the backup controls.
Out of apparently nowhere, a second autonomous-driving van starts to "tail" them. We here a "pffft" of an air gun, and the safety driver reaches up towards a tranquilizer dart that has embedded in his neck, shortly before slumping over the controls.
James Bond gets up to drag the safety driver off the controls and take over. He has no idea on how to operate the backup controls on an autonomous-dr
Re: (Score:2)
Probably because it's still illegal.
Safety driver? (Score:2)
Personally I think Waymo is years ahead of anybody else in the race for actual self-driving. Of course where that puts them relative to a finish line - of, say, being technically able to drive at least 90% of all passenger miles in the US - is something nobody knows, since it's never been accomplished be
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They started Phoenix with safety drivers too, and only switched to full driverless later. I don't know about the local regulations, but that's just a prudent move regardless. You want to make sure your AI stuff works well before you entrust peoples' lives to it.
Still not quite ready for SF (Score:3)
I live in San Francisco and literally see 5 - 10 of these Waymo Jaguars a day. My kids hell out "Robot Car" when they see them, just as my brother used to hit me and hell "Slug Bug" back in the early 80s.
I live on a street that is two ways, but too small for two cars to pass. So, when you see a car coming your way, one of them has to pull over or back up or something.
The Waymo cars absolutely suck at this. They just stop like a deer in the headlights. Then the "safety driver" has to take over.
They are trying hard to learn how to handle this, and send cars down my street all the time, but they aren't quite there.
I'm sure there are other small issues, but for a taxi service, it has to be seamless.
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A yes, ye olde Cornish lorry problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Solution (pending better path planning) is for robotaxis is to blacklist that road segment,
then drop off the customer at the nearest corner.
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Further, Tesla gamely tries to address this "joint planning" problem
at approx 1:17:00 into https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com].
Now that Waymo is offering robotaxi rides in our beloved Frisco, just ask for
a drop-off to Miguel Street or thereabouts!
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Waymo uses algorithms to decide what the car should do, so they can manage situations like that by coding in the parameters directly. Obviously it's quite tricky to do and they are taking their time to get it right, but at least they aren't trying to train an AI to magically figure it out.
Waymo's cars still lack basic driving skills (Score:2)
Just this week in SF I saw a Waymo Jaguar try to make a left hand turn despite the crosswalk having several pedestrians already in it. The car appropriately stopped before (or more like in) the sidewalk and inched closer as it tried to make sense of how many people were still left in the sidewalk. Meanwhile opposing traffic had to stop because the Waymo Jaguar was blocking both lanes of traffic.
Makes me wish these cars had "How am I driving?" bumper stickers on them.
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This week? I just need to look outside and I see a human driver driving against red lights, speeding, turning to no-turn streets, etc. No matter how bad the cars are, they can't be worse than humans.
Pedestrians (Score:2)
Pedestrians who are struck by Waymo vehicles, before receiving medical treatment, will be required to sign NDAs.